The Norman Bethune Symposium was held in a hybrid format, with some attendees in person in Vancouver, BC, and others attending virtually via Zoom. I was excited not just to attend this symposium but also to present my current work orally.
My current project at Dr. Our analyses indicate that exotoxins exhibit characteristics of biomarkers, as we detected increased exotoxins expression in platelets components contaminated by S. Therefore, I propose exotoxins as valuable biomarkers for identifying platelet components that are contaminated by S.
At the symposium, several presentations were interesting; for instance, the ways to improve blood safety using an infection-resistant storage device by Helen Chen and physical biomarker talk by Dr.
Hongshen Ma, both from UBC. However, the most exciting talk was presented by Dr. Andreas Greinacher, from Greifswald, Germany, on vaccine induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia. It was informative to know that vaccines can cause a disorder that results in platelets clumping in small blood vessels. The hybrid symposium this year was successful as it was possible for me attending virtually to hear and see the participants and presenters.
However, it was not easy to evaluate the posters virtually, especially when asking questions and getting responses from the poster presenters. Overall, the symposium this year was great and many thanks to the organizers.
